All posts by RAverett

Desserts, Recipes

Pistachio Cream Cheese Pudding Dish is a Delight

I was recently reminded of a wonderful dessert that Toni Kelly, PK’s mom, used to make using a cookie base, a layer of cream cheese and a layer of chocolate pudding covered with whipped cream.  PK and I used to make it with several different puddings, including pistachio, which is the recipe that recently made its way through Facebook.  Recalling the absolutely heavenly taste of this dessert, I decided to convert it to a low carb version. The taste is still heavenly although the portions are a little smaller, but it’s a wonderful treat.

This can also be made into little tarts by making them in flexible silicone molds and I’ve included the instructions for those as well.  The 1/2 cup servings help control the portions and you’re not as tempted to sneak another spoonful as you would be from a whole pan of it.

Mom Kelly’s Pistachio Cream Cheese Delight

For the Pie crust:
3 tablespoons Butter, softened
1/3 cup Carbquick or Almond Flour
1/3 cup chopped Pecans
3 tablespoons Granulated Sugar Substitute

For the Cream Cheese layer:
1/3 cup Powdered Sugar Substitute
4 oz Cream Cheese
1/2 cup Cool Whip or Whipped Cream

For the pudding layer:
1 regular sized pkg Sugar Free Instant Pistachio Pudding mix
1 1/2 cups cold Unsweetened Almond Milk or Unsweetened Coconut Milk or
6 oz. Heavy Cream and 6 oz. cold Water

Topping:
1/2 cup Cool Whip or Whipped Cream
1/4 cup chopped Pistachios

Spray an 8×8 pan with cooking spray.  Preheat your oven to 350 degress (F).

In a small bowl, mix butter, flour, sugar substitute and nuts together to make a crumbly dough; press into 8×8 inch pan.

Bake for 15 to 20 min.  Set aside to cool.

In another bowl, mix powdered sugar substitute*, cream cheese and cool whip and spread on cooled crust.

Using a whisk or an electric mixer. beat pudding mix and cold milk until thick.   Cover the pudding with plastic and place in the refrigerator and let set for 5 to 10 minutes until it thickens.  Spread on cream cheese layer and top with a layer of cool whip and chopped nuts.  Refrigerate for two to three hours before serving.

* If you can’t find powdered sugar substitute, you can make it by putting granulated sugar substitute, like Splenda or Ideal Sugar Substitute, into a food processor and pulsing until it turns into a fine powder.  Failing that, just use the granulated sugar and mix it in well.

To make as individual tarts:

Mix the crust as above. Prepare 12 tart pans (silicone ones are easier to peel the dessert out) and lightly spray with a cooking spray.

Put 1 tablespoon of crust mix into each tart pan and press it down to cover the bottom. Put all the molds on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. Let cool completely.

Molds filled with baked cookie crust and cream cheese mix.

Mix the cream cheese as above, then put about 1 1/2 teaspoons of mixture into each mold. Spread with the back of the spoon. If it doesn’t spread easily or sticks to the spoon, wet the back of the teaspoon and do about three before wetting it again.

Mix the pudding as above and let set until partially firm. Spoon 2 tablespoons of pudding into each mold. Put pan in the refrigerator to cool and set up more.

Once they are set pretty firmly, put the tarts, still in the molds, into the freezer for 45 minutes to an hour to get mostly solid.  Remove from the mold (silicone ones will peel back) and wrap in plastic wrap.

About 30 minutes before serving, remove the tart from the plastic wrap and set on serving plate to thaw.  Spread Cool Whip or whipped cream on top of each tart and sprinkle nuts on top.

Frozen tarts will keep for several days.

Makes 12 servings
Nutrition Info per serving
Calories: 129.4 Fat: 11.4 g Net Carbs: 4.5 g Protein: 2.1 g

 

Healthy Life

Zero Effective Carbs Equals Zero Flavor

2 Comments

Yesterday, I went to my local health food store and purchased two loaves of Julian Bread’s zero net carb breads, their regular bread and the cinnamon bread. First, these were in small supply at this big store that carries health food products and the cinnamon bread was frozen. They sell so few units that it’s best to freeze the bread. The bread lists online at Julian Bread’s web site for $7.95 a loaf, pretty pricey for a small loaf of bread, but from this chain market, it was $9.99 a loaf. Way too pricey!

But I had hopes that the taste of the bread would make up for it. This was not to be. I toasted up one of slices in the toaster. It was very thin, but it held together well and didn’t fall apart when I removed it. Often low carb breads tend to crumble. These breads are gluten free also so that is a plus for it. I buttered it, split the piece and my roomie and I both tasted it. No flavor! I would say it tastes like cardboard, but I’ve never eaten cardboard. It just didn’t even have a taste of salt or anything else a bread should taste like. Worse, the butter flavor disappeared in it.

Today, I tried a piece of the cinnamon bread with peanut butter and strawberry jam on it. It brought nothing to the party. The only flavors that came through were the toppings. Not even the cinnamon is distinct enough. It’s not even like a cracker.

So, I would have to say that this is not worth the money to purchase. You can make a better tasting low carb bread from scratch that only has a couple of effective carbs in it or buy a low carb bread mix from New Hope Mills or Bob’s Red Mill or LC Foods. Even my low carb soda bread has more flavor with a taste that’s very close to the real thing.

If you want to make low carb breads, I can’t stress how easy they are to make even though you may have to special order a few products. I get mine from Netrition.com. It takes about a week and the shipping is $4.95, no matter how much you order, so order several at one time, They carry New Hope Mills, CarbQuick, Bob’s Red Mill, Dixie Diner and LC Foods products, so they’re a great place for one stop shopping and shipping.

POSTED BY RENE AVERETT AT 11/16/2013 1:06 PM

Main Dish, Recipes

Quick Fix Green Chile Chicken

Green Chile Chicken Skillet Casserole

Cinco de Mayo is just around the corner so it’s time to throw out a few recipes to help celebrate the day!  Since I am a product of the Southwest, I love this kind of food, but I admit, much of it has a Tex-Mex flavoring to it.  This recipe is one I’ve made for years and always relished.  It’s easy, takes about 30 to 40 minutes to prepare and tastes wonderful.

It only required a couple of changes to make it low carb’d and that was mostly to replace the rice with riced cauliflower.  Using pico de gallo that is already made from the grocery store and canned green chile enchilada sauce really speeds up the process but still delivers the wonderful flavors.  If you can’t find pico de gallo at your grocery store, it is easy to make with onions, tomatoes, jalapeno chiles and cilantro.  There are many on the internet, but you can try this one.

Green Chile Chicken Skillet Casserole

Chicken strips work very well with this dish.

6 oz – Chicken Breast
4 tablespoons Pico de Gallo
1/2 cup Green Chile Enchilada Sauce
2 tablespoons Chopped Green Chiles
1 teaspoon Better than Bullion chicken plus 1/2 cup water or 1/2 cup chicken broth
1 cup Cauliflower, frozen, thawed and riced
1 cup Zucchini sliced or chopped
2 tablespoons Sour Cream,
1/4 cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 tablespoon Olive Oil

If starting with fresh cauliflower, par boil for 3 minutes and drain. If using frozen cauliflower, thaw and cook in the microwave for 2 minutes or par boil for 2 minutes, then drain excess water off. Process in a food processor for a few seconds until it is riced. Or you can chop finely or grate.

Cut the chicken into bite sized cubes.

Heat oil in a medium skillet and add the pico de gallo. Saute about three minutes over medium heat. Move to one side and add the chicken to it. Cook until brown on both sides, then add chicken broth or bullion and water to the skillet along with the enchilada sauce. Stir in the chicken pieces and let come to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, then add the riced cauliflower and zucchini.

Cook for about 15 minutes until most of the liquid is reduced and zucchini is fork tender. Add the sour cream and cheese and stir in to mix well, cooking for about three minutes more to melt the cheese.
Serves 2 or 3 people, depending in how hungry you are.

Nutrition Info: 2 servings
Calories: 274 Fat: 13.8 g Net Carbs: 5.7 g Protein: 26.2 g

3 servings:
Calories: 183 Fat: 9.2 g Net Carbs: 3.8 g Protein: 17.5 g

Healthy Life

About the special products I use…

products-images

Since I use several low carb products, I wanted to talk a little bit about them.  First, I am not receiving any compensation from the makers of these products and they probably don’t know I have a blog or mention them, so I’m not trying to plug any particular product — just letting you know what I use and why.

As I’ve mentioned, my body isn’t a very efficient fat burner so the amount of net carbs I can eat daily and lose weight or maintain my weight is very low.  The minimum recommended on the Atkins diet for their induction phase is 20 net carbs a day.  That is just about the maximum I can go and still lose anything.  If I go up to about 23 net carbs, I am a maintenance weight.  If I go over that, then I begin to gain.  While this might sound like a problem, it really isn’t as bad as it sounds as there is always something you can eat with no carbs.

Liquid Sweeteners

But it does make me very aware of the net carbs in some products, like powdered Splenda, Equal and Stevia that may only have a little, but the carbs are in the filler that the actual sweetener is in.  By using a liquid sweetener, I can eliminate the carbs completely.  It may sound like worrying over nothing, but if I use four packets of sweetener a day, that’s almost 4 net carbs I can use elsewhere.  For instance, it can be a whole low carb dessert!

If you are baking with a powdered sweetener, one cup is about 24 carbs and that’s a lot extra in your food.  There are times where the powdered sweetener is needed for a texture, but you can cut some of it and use liquid for the remainder.

There are several manufactures who make liquid sucralose.  Just check it out on a search and you’ll see various brands.  Liquid sucralose is just the concentrated sucralose in a water suspension rather than the powder.  I use EZ-Sweet, which is readily available from Amazon.com, Netrition and other suppliers.  You might even find it in grocery and health food stores.

Flours

Since I love breads, flour is a big problem if your body doesn’t use carbohydrates well.  I am not even going to question how products such as CarbQuick, Atkins (no longer being produced) and Bob’s Red Mill flours reduce the carbs in the flour they produce.  Some are a mix of various flours that may not include any wheat flour while some have managed to block some of the carbs in the product so that it isn’t absorbed by the body.  I’ve said before that many of the new products coming out have been developed to help diabetics more than folks trying to maintain a low carb lifestyle, but it’s benefited all of us.

Being special products, these flours tend to be at least double the regular flours.  If you buy a loaf of pre-made low carb bread, they run about $8 a loaf.  You can bake them for less than that.  All of flours I mentioned are available from Amazon and Netrition.   Other brands are also available.  I’ve used several of them.  I generally go with CarbQuick because it’s versatile and the lowest net carb count of the ones I’ve seen.  But there are time you want a finer flour and Atkins or LC Foods both produce a finer textured flour for baking breads and cakes.

Don’t overlook almond, coconut, and other nut flours when baking.  They are lower in carbs and work very well in baking.  They are also gluten free for those who can’t eat regular flour. My Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe can be made using just almond flour or a combination of almond flour and coconut flour without using any of the wheat flour products that contain gluten.  Soy flour is another option, but I personally don’t like the taste of it, so I use it in very little quantity.

As I go along with this blog and use these products, I’m going to try to feature them a little more under the Yummy LC Products header.  Some of the products I use are mixes for breads and cakes, while others are ingredient items.  Either way, I’ll put items there that I use and I’d like to introduce to you that I think will help you to enjoy a low carb lifestyle if that’s your goal.

First published on my blog 10/08/2012.

8/2012 12:20 PM

Healthy Life

My Low Carb Healthful Living

Anyone who has followed a low calorie diet, then compared it to a low carb diet will notice that low calorie doesn’t always equal low carb and vice versa. I can attest that just counting calories and following a low calorie diet will not always work and often leaves you hungry as well as frustrated and unhappy.   I was never a huge overeater although I probably ate a little more than my body needed.  If I went on a strict 1000 calorie diet, I could lose weight, but I was often hungry.  It’s also not easy to maintain and it is depressing to think you can’t enjoy any of the foods that you really love.  What’s the point in life if you can’t enjoy it?  So you slip off and eventually revert back.

I think people need to find out how their body processes food, how much of it and what kinds.  I went on a low carb diet for the first time when I was just out of high school and lost a lot of weight that I kept off for about six years before it began creeping back as my diet slipped back to old habits and I was exercising less.  The same pattern repeated when I went on a low calorie diet and I kept the weight off again for several years, before the pounds returned with friends.  In between, I’d had success with several other diet options, but none of them a plan for life.

When I went on Atkins this time, I noticed that the plan had changed its approach.  Instead of 40 carbs to begin, the diet was now talking net carbs, which are the carbs that your body actually uses of what you consume.  Two weeks at 20 net carbs to start, then you gradually add carbs until you stop losing weight, drop a few carbs back and that’s what you eat to continue to lose.  Then you go back up to the stall amount and you’re at the carbs you actually burn.  Makes sense.  Along the way, you audition food to see which foods may stall your diet and which seem to help.  Starch and sugars are really the culprits and since this helps you limit them, it also makes a low carb diet a good choice for diabetics or anyone who needs to control their blood sugar.

Well, it didn’t take long for me to figure out that the max number of net carbs I could eat and not gain weight was about 23 a day.  Not a happy number for me.  So, 20 carbs was my ideal for losing weight and that means a fairly slow weight loss.  Over the past four years, I’ve lost 142  pounds (as of April 15. 2014).  Considering that I am not a really active person, that’s not bad.  I am retired and I don’t do a lot of exercising, so I am thinking that if I can establish some kind of regular exercise program, I might be able to up the carbs a little.

Now, when I say 20 carbs a day, that might cause a panic, but again, this is net carbs – carbs that my body actually uses.  All the rest are pass through and there are a lot of those.  Still, on average, I eat about 40 to 65 carbs a day.  But when you consider all the things you can eat that have little or no carbs in them, like many meats, cheese, eggs, and some vegetables, then you see that the majority of your carbs can be spent on vegetables and fruits with lower carb counts and reduced-carb food items.

All of these new products with reduced carbs, make it possible to eat delicious food you love and still stay within your low carb lifestyle.  And I think that will be the key to not gaining the weight back this time.  If you can have delicious and “legal” food, then you’re less likely to wander.

Which brings me to one of the reasons I decided to blog my recipes and my stories.  If I put it out there, I hope it will help to keep me on course over the years and will encourage others to do the same.  I just wish I’d known how my body handled food earlier in my life and that the food substitutes had been as plentiful as they are now.

Originally posted on my blog on 08/26/2012